The short person’s savior: Kitchen tongs

Today’s tip is a simple repurposing tip, but it comes in very handy in our house!

We have lots of high-up cabinets in our kitchen wherein we store things that are used only once-in-a-while. And when it comes to having to retrieve one of those items, I get so annoyed at the thought of having to drag over a chair — or worse — a step ladder to reach what I need. No need to tell me I’m lazy — I’m aware, thanks. Most of the time, I can simply use a pair of kitchen tongs to get down an item from a high shelf without climbing to get it.

Kitchen tongs also work well to fish out cars, balls and other small toys from underneath the stove and the couch.

10 Responses

I’m 5’2″ and have cabinets all the way to the ceiling. I drag a chair over to retrieve items from the highest cabinets, but inevitably leave a cabinet door open. Only my long-handled wooden spoons are long enough for me to close those doors!

I have super high ceilings and I climb up on the counter to take things out of the highest cabinets-it’s all breakable stuff like wine glasses and glass bowls. One of these days I’ll invest in a stepladder…or get industrious and make a step stool!

Hey, I’m 4’10” and have dealt with this type of thing forever. Tongs – Good idea. I’ve used them myself. But my thing is to have a bamboo back scratcher in just about every room. They are longer than tongs and have those little ‘fingers’ that help catch stuff on the tippy top of shelves. You find back scratchers at yard sales a lot and can pick them up for a song.

This idea is so great. I’m tall but we can all use extra reach sometimes. I absolutely love figuring out how to use tools that are already in my house and solve new problems with them. I recently figured out how to use my tweezers to solve a similar problem. Check out this post if you’re interested: http://wepurpose.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/extend-your-reach/

I have always done somethign similar to this, but usually I am reachign for my giant jars of flour and other baking needs off the top of the cabinets.

Instead of usign tongs which wont grasp around my big jars I use my ladel or spatula to hook behind and drag forward to the point where i can safely reach the front of the jar and tip it into my hand. It sounds dangerous and messy but I have yet to have an accident!
Want to know the most efficient way to do something? ASK THE LAZIEST PERSON!!!